(Credits: Far Out / TCM)
Meryl Streep has taken on nearly every role under the sun, starring in action thrillers, high-stakes dramas, romantic comedies and slice-of-life films, extending her talents to all corners of the cinema throughout her illustrious career.
She has garnered critical acclaim for her vulnerable and multi-dimensional performance in the likes of Kramer vs Kramer, The Deer Hunter and Doubt, matching her screen presence by collaborating with other great actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman and Julienne Moore. However, while she has remained versatile and seamless in her creative choices, there is one project that perhaps would have been the cherry on top, showing a rather different side to her talents.
Sylvester Stallone is one of the leading men within the action genre, with celebrated performances in high-octane drama films like Rocky, Creed and Men in Black. With a stoic yet aggressive presence on screen, he is the perfect pairing to complete the masculine-fuelled drama of these projects, creating intense and suspenseful stories.
However, there was one film that Stallone starred in that nearly took a different turn entirely by floating around the idea of casting Meryl Streep, which would have been an unexpected collaboration.
Demolition Man, directed by Marco Brambilla in 1993, follows a cryogenically frozen criminal called Simon Phoenix who escapes from a parole hearing in 2032. The police are unable to track him down and turn to his captor for help, who was also frozen after being accused of killing 30 people.
Starring Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock, the film found a niche cult following and is loved for its over-the-top action and slight mocking of other ‘80s action thrillers, with an outlandish vision of the future that feels ridiculous yet entertaining nonetheless.
The writer of the film, Daniel Waters, later shared the abandoned plans to create a sequel, in which the director and he both leapt at the idea of casting Meryl Streep. However, these plans materialised in a rather strange way after audiences became confused over a plot point in which it was mentioned that Stallone’s character had a daughter, who was never seen again. At first, some people thought Bullock was the daughter, which was quickly quelled after a sex scene between her character and Stallone’s.
The creative team was then in a pickle and wondered whether they should cut the mention of the daughter entirely before the director suggested they create a sequel in which Meryl Streep plays this character. Waters described this thought process, saying, “We thought, ‘Maybe we should cut out all mentions of the daughter’. Can’t do it. We need something. And then Joel Silver’s like, ‘Meryl Streep is the daughter. She needs a big box office action movie’. I go, ‘No, she doesn’t.’. But he was like, ‘If I get her to do it, will you come on?; … But yes, Joel did talk about a sequel”.
While this never appeared on our screens, perhaps the logic of this decision would have been hard to explain and this random instalment was better off being abandoned.
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